Nobel Literature Prize to journalist/writer who gives voice to voiceless

(Vatican Radio) Free speech advocates have welcomed the decision to award this year's Nobel Prize in literature to Belarusian Svetlana Alexievich as the writer and investigative journalist is seen as a voice of the voiceless. 

Listen to the report by Stefan Bos: 

Speaking in the gilded rooms of the Royal Swedish Academy the institute's new permanent secretary Sara Danius said Alexievich received the award "for her polyphonic writings, a monument to suffering and courage in our times." 

The 67-year old Alexievich is the 14th woman to win the literature prize and one of the first whose work is mainly nonfiction. 

Her works often blend literature and investigative journalism. She is best known for giving voice to women and men who lived through major events like the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan that lasted from 1979 to 1989 and the Chernobyl nuclear disaster of 1986, in which her own sister was killed and her mother was blinded.

FACE OF WAR

However the Royal Swedish Academy's permanent secretary recommended readers unfamiliar with this year's winner to start with her book "The Unwomanly Face of War". It is  based on hundreds of moving deep interviews with female participants in the Second World War while serving in the Soviet Union's Red Army. 

Writers' free-speech group English PEN called Nobel literature laureate Alexievich "a tireless chronicler of voices which might not otherwise be heard," and said it hoped her victory would encourage the Belarus government to improve its human rights record.

Alexievich spent several years living outside Belarus after criticizing the country's authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko, who is up for re-election on Sunday.

In an interview, the author said however that winning the Nobel Prize in literature left her with a "complicated" feeling as it reminded her to to other Russian writers who have won the prize. She recalled that she was at home "ironing" when the academy gave her the call of calls.

Asked what she was going to do with the 8 million Swedish kronor (about $960,000) prize money, she said: 

"I do only one thing: I buy freedom for myself. It takes me a long time to write my books, from five to 10 years."